Jaromira Dragan
; |textcolor=#FFFFFF |altbackcolor=#FFFFFF; |alttextcolor=#36454F |height=2.2 |maxwidth=20 |tab1=Overview }} | image = | race = ( ) | birthday =December 30 | age =3604 | gender =Female | height =162cm (5'4") | weight =48kg (107lb.) | blood type =O Negative | affiliation =Gotei 13 | previous affiliation = | profession = | position =Captain of the 12th Division | previous position =Founding Captain of the | division =12th Division | previous division = | partner =Garland Dragan | previous partner =Satoru Kyōfu | base of operations = , , Soul Society | relatives =Izakata Hizakura (Ex-Lover) Kanaya Hizakura (Daughter) Iyori Hizakura (Son) Garland Dragan (Adopt. Daughter) | education =Gotōryū | shikai ='Gūjinkiyo' | bankai ='Tantoride Gūjinkiyo' | resurrección = | story debut = | roleplay debut =''Worlds Apart'' }} Jaromira Dragan (ヤロミラ ヅラガン, Yaromira Duragan), at one point Jaromira Hizakura (ヒザクラ ヤロミラ, Hizakura Yaromira), is a and member of the Gotei 13. An incredibly powerful individual, she was appointed as one of the founding Captains of the entire organisation, charged with leading the . For her part in the ill-remembered War of Days, she was charged with several notable war crimes and sentenced to , where she has been locked up for the past few hundred years. Appearance Jaromira is a woman of average stature, possessing origins as denoted by her rather pale complexion. She is relatively thin, but not unfit. Her hair is a long, flowing voluminous mass of deep red that runs down behind her back as well as her right side, a large portion of which hangs over in front of her, obscuring her right eye and much of her face in the process, then feeding into a long curled tail of hair that runs over her chest to reach as far down as her stomach. Evening things out are a few strands that help frame her left side, giving Jaromira an unusually mature look. She has thin, smoothed eyebrows as well as curved, gray coloured eyes. Her facial features are all smooth and curved, fitting a woman born of noble birth; though her nostrils have a slight natural flare to them, and her beautiful pink lips are cracked with scars. She dons a sleeveless shirt that is made up of a high with two horizontally aligned rows of pointed frills. The collar is tied by a small silk necktie. Below the collar, the shirt is divided down the centre by a vertical line, with the left side being white and the right side being a light, sheer blue. The blue portion is further divided with another vertical line splitting it into two even sections. The white side is detailed by a pair of black lines fanning outwards at differing angles near the bottom. Over this shirt she wears a long white coat, similarly lacking in sleeves and marked by gold trim across its borders, the coat tails having the addition of a silver embroidered design running behind said trim. The coat is marked by two threaded lines running down the front and across its sides, and is only closed over her chest by a set of three golden, arrow-ended straps and a clasp around the collar, thus leaving the shirt beneath exposed with regards to her stomach. Her arms are dressed up with a pair of detached sleeves that cover all the way down to her hands, though they leave the fingers uncovered. The sleeves are tied by a pair of clasps at the top of her arm, and are themselves marked by golden trim and frilled edges at the top. They are also mismatched in colour; the left sleeve being black with white clasps whilst the right inverts those colours. She wears a short, simple, black pleated skirt and a pair of brown leather boots, each having the cap dyed in gold. Though they are each marked by high heels, the right boot only rises part way up Jaromira's lower leg before terminating in a gold trimmed cuff, the left boot, however, reaches all the way up her thigh and is itself marked by a golden arrow-shaped crest. During her time as a founding Captain, she was a full foot shorter, and her hair was a lot messier, left to simply grow and run down her face. She wore the standard Shinigami Shihakushō, which was made up of a white worn underneath a black which was paired with a black tied with a white hakama-himo. Instead of the typical footwear, she wore . She also did not wear a haori as was the tradition that wished to establish, instead she opted to wear a bulky coat with fur linings, though its design matched the haori of her fellows; white in colour and emblazoned with the symbols of her division. Her hands were also covered with a pair of fingerless black gloves, an unusual anachronism for the time. Personality Jaromira is an incredibly self-absorbed woman, caring only for her own interests with little regard for the lives of others. As far as she is concerned, people are little more than noise. They are to be heard, and then promptly forgotten. There are exceptions to this rule, of course, but it isn't a matter of fulfilling any form of realistic criteria, Jaromira simply takes interest in certain individuals that she finds promising. Such occurrences aren't incredibly rare, as the first several hundred members to join the 12th Division upon its founding were made up entirely of such individuals. But it is rare for her to take interest in anyone who is well-established in life, most anyone she listens to are those one would believe are inferior to her, either in intellect, prowess or accomplishment. Thus someone who is considered a "master" at a craft is very unlikely to have any leeway with Jaromira. This was true of her fellow founding Captains amongst the Gotei 13, all of which she seemed to ignore. Only Genryūsai Shigekuni Yamamoto managed to be worthy of her attention. But for those of the lower echelon, Jaromira is unusually helpful. She is, on the surface, still the same person, dismissive, arrogant and completely callous. But should one confide in her regardless, their problems suddenly disappear and opportunities find their way to that person's doorstep. For though Jaromira may care little for her fellow man, she is still, at heart, a mother. Taking a rather twisted view of her own Human life, Jaromira adopted the name of a local deity, the God of All, Dragan (全神・ヅラガン, Zenkami, Duragan) when she passed over into Soul Society which is where much of her egotistical nature stems from. Warped by the method in which she passed on from life, it became a dominant part of her personality, as even in life she was viewed as a deification, even if only in passing. Thus Jaromira sees herself as God, and mother to all life in the world. It is unseemly for a mother to allow her children to fall, true they may stumble, but they never touch the ground in her presence. A mother is a master of subtlety, pushing their children forward through encouragement and hints. In this way, Jaromira's nature as a cold hearted woman is a facade, meant to hide the fact that she truly cares for those under her, be they her charges, her subordinates, or simply those around her. It would stand to reason then that a "master" is someone she views as a child that has grown up, someone who no longer needs her to care for them and so she has let them go so that they might stand on their own. Of course, this is merely her own way of looking at things and very rarely is it reflected as being true to life. Typically she is utterly ignorant to the will of others. Knowledge, rules, opinion, facts. All of it, from the mouth of someone else? It is nothing but insignificant chattering from fools not worth heeding. She had gone nigh on a millennia breaking the laws of Soul Society before finally saw fit to arrest her, though the way she sees it is that its only natural for her to break such rules as she sees fit; for a God can do no wrong. To enter into an alliance with Jaromira is always a relationship based upon gain, for she is beholden to no one but herself and as such can only be trusted so far as her goals align with another. Those that manage to impress her, or otherwise pique her interest, may find themselves exempt from her ignorance, if only for a time. Though, as before, there is no true criteria for such an occurrence. She simply picks people on a whim. Hachū Bōkunō, Jojishi Kyōjin, and Satoru Kyōfu, each wound up in her sights for different reasons, the former because of his unique insight given his cursed form, Jojishi for his skills, and Satoru simply for his height. The only person to have ever earned her undivided attention was Izakata Hizakura, whom she loved for his unending naïveté. She is most content with the act of testing things. As the words of everyone else in the world are essentially meaningless to her, she then tends to see things as if they were a blank canvas. All fields of study are ripe for the taking, all crafts and forms, too, are hers to do with as she pleases. As a Human she passed the days by studying the resources of the forest, combining them to see what they could do and recording her findings. As a spirit, she does this with practically everything. One could possibly derive meaning from her studies of each field of science, given its rudimentary state in the Human World when she died, but her forays into crafts like pottery or candy making are only ever perceived as unorthodox and unusual. Not only does she get enjoyment out of learning everything as if it were new to the world, but she also uses it as a means to advance herself and her intellect. It is not uncommon for her to take a mundane principle of one craft and transform it into a near-mystical concept for another that brings unparalleled, if unusual, advancements to the field. She tends to fixate on whatever she dabbles with, as of the time of the War of Days she had been obsessed with making candy, and today that fixation seems to be on her own line of figurines. She has reservations against taking life, preferring not to if she can help it. As the mother of all life, to slay what she sees as her own children is surely needlessly painful. It isn't something that manages to restrict her much though, as she has come to limit herself to a one chance rule. She offers everyone unlucky enough to fight her just one chance to give up and flee, should they refuse, Jaromira won't bother asking again. Likewise, attempted blackmail is a sure way to have her forego this rule entirely as more than one individual has found out. She does not suffer the whims of fools, and she especially does not cater to them, any true child of hers would recognise this fact and never attempt something so asinine as to "bargain" with her. Life is little more than a place for games to Jaromira, especially given her advanced state of undeath. Testing the minds of others, using battle to corner people like rats, it is all little more than amusement, though she wasn't always so callous about it, which speaks of the results of having no mind but her own to deal with for five hundred years. In a less grim sense, she very much loves games of intellect and strategy: , , , even the relatively modern manages to capture her attention. She detests as boring and tasteless, but has an obsessive love for well prepared . Her recent fixation on making toys highlights her unusual sense of taste, with a focus on abstractions and asymmetrical designs. They manage to be popular among the populace of the Rukongai, somehow. History In a girl was born in the cultural region, an area which would become Southern , and Northern . She lived in a forest region that was home to a few well-apart villages, and her parents lived in relative seclusion away from it all. It was five years after the child's birth that a pack of rabid wolves were loosed on their homestead, the parents were killed, but the child escaped. She ran, as far as her legs would take her. She didn't stop until her stamina was gone, and her legs themselves gave out from under her. And then she continued to crawl. A child so young, forcing themselves so hard, it was a given that she would pass out. When she woke, she was in the comfort of a bed, the home of an old hunter who had stumbled upon her during his forays into the woods. The man gave the young girl shelter, saw that her wounds were healed up, and went in search of her family once he could ensure her safety. What he found was a homestead, ruined, decrepit and stained with blood. He took what goods he could carry, and were still preserved, and decided to care for the young child himself. Once she was strong enough, the child repaid him with a knife in the back. A needlessly cruel "kindness". The man had done nothing but help her, share his home and his food with her, but the image of the wolf was what had come to define her youth. And as rabid beasts slaughtered her parents, two individuals that had done nothing but love and care for the girl, she repeated that cycle with the hunter. Killing her caretaker meant fending for herself from then on, but she had been given rudimentary lessons in using the tools of the hunt before she used them to kill her teacher. She sustained herself by hunting lesser game, and when that proved ineffective she came up with her own methods to obtain the kill. She was weaker than most of the creatures that would provide a great source of food, so she overcame them with her mind. Herbs, plants, fruit that could be turned into enticing traps and poison. Fire, smoke, wires and wood became the tools to ensnare and direct her prey. She found joy in this, and once she grew old enough to easily hunt for a living, the act of toying with her surroundings is where she found joy. A scientist, an alchemist, a herbalist, she could be identified as many things. But in the ages before enlightenment she would be called a witch. The villages in her region of the world tolerated her, as she brought plenty of pelts and meat when she came to trade. It was fine to give her the herbs and plants she couldn't obtain on her own, so long as it didn't come back against the village. This earned her a reputation of course, as people often spoke of things they had no business in. And when sickness befell one village, she was either to blame, or she was its salvation. When a group of villagers appeared before her doorstep, the witch clutched a dagger, fully prepared for the cycle to repeat itself. Instead they begged and pleaded for her aid. A concoction, a potion, anything that could save their dying children. Loathe to incur her wrath, they had gifted her the name Jaromira. Without her permission, of course, though she did like the sound of it. She helped them. Went with them back to their village and heard their tales. They hadn't blamed her, for the blame fell upon themselves. A weak harvest had led to them giving a lesser offering to a local God, a being they called Dragan, God of All. A curse had fallen upon them for their callous act, and the children of every household would die as a result. In truth, it was little more than a cold and Jaromira knew just the right supplement to strengthen their immune systems. People were fickle and easily swayed, so she told them: "This is not a curse, but a blessing, for Dragan pushed you to seek aid from the world and thus did he give you unto me". It was meant to keep them from turning on her, as though she had aided the village, she was still a witch; an abominable creature that went against life. She was successful in placating them, but at the same time whispers were abound that she was some sort of avatar for the local deity. Petitions for aid became very common after that. Life moved on in equilibrium. She had carved a place into her society, the villages depending on her for healing and care that they could not come to on their own, and she was content to stew away at the various life around her, unlocking their secrets through rudimentary experimentation. Once she felt she had discovered all that she could, she grew bored. Her world view was exceedingly narrow. The forest was vast, and to her, who had spent all of her years there, it was all of the world. To have unlocked all of its secrets meant there was no point in continuing. In Jaromira claimed her own life. Barring the doors of her home and setting it ablaze, she was long dead from the smoke by the time the fire even got to her. Instantly, her eyes were opened to a realm far more expansive than she thought possible. The held so much than she had ever realised, and beyond that was a far greater realm: the world of the dead. Soul Society * : Jaromira is made one of the first Captains of the Gotei 13. * : The War of Days occurs, Jaromira's actions in the war causes her to lose her position amidst the Gotei, branded as a war criminal by the Central 46. She goes into hiding. A Scarlet Affair It was . Having hid within the shadows of Soul Society successfully for three hundred years without incident, it was bound to happen eventually that Jaromira would slip up. She was prideful, arrogant, and truly haughty. She had recently snuck into the to meet some of her old contacts, and whilst there, she felt an overwhelming desire to exercise an old pass time. Riling up the nobility. True to her title, she smashed barrier after barrier of the noble households. The Gotei and Onmitsukidō were mobilised to find the intruder, but they could find no trace of that perfectly hidden Reiatsu. They instantly knew however, that there could only be one individual behind such an act. The compounds were unharmed, the nobility were still alive, and their treasures untouched. To flagrantly flaunt such a power, and to break so many barriers with such ease; the military knew exactly who they were after. But they would never find her. She had broken into the Hizakura household. A relatively high-ranking family that had been known for the incredible quality of their textiles. Whilst admiring their works for herself she was caught by none other than the current heir of the family, Izakata. The young man was instantly taken in with her, bombarding her with all sorts of questions. When the Onmitsukidō arrived to question him about the break in, he had her hidden away in safety. Afterwards they talked, Izakata had been a follower of the works of the 12th Division that she had led and so Jaromira quickly came to the conclusion that he wanted her genius to assist in elevating his lineage. He claimed that to be true, though in reality he was simply enamoured by her and needed a way to keep her form disappearing into her seclusion once again. Having not been able to practice her craft so freely whilst on the run, she found herself amiable to the idea, and so Izakata and Jaromira came to an agreement; she would be the shadowy arm of the Hizakura for a time. They spent twenty-five years together, and it would quickly become apparent that Izakata had never planned for any sort of ploy to advance his clan. He was after her. She denied him, time and again, content to play the part that she had agreed to, happily did she use this time to delve into the sciences for whatever she wished. Eventually, however, she let him in. She allowed him to court her, partly out of curiosity and a desire to have some form of companionship that wasn't trapped behind the walls that she surrounded herself with. Thus a real friendship sprouted, and then descended into romance. A secret affair, of course, for she was still a criminal after all, and only those closest to Izakata were allowed to know of her existence. In the spring of , Jaromira became pregnant. She was ecstatic; the woman who acted the part of God, who behaved as if she was mother of all creation, had come into her own. These children would undeniably be of her making, the most precious gift that she could have received. Nine months later, she gave birth to Kanaya and Iyori. After she had recovered from the tribulations of childbirth, Izakata began broaching the topic of marriage. He wished to reveal to the world that Jaromira was a woman of the Hizakura household, that their house would not stand for the accusations held against her and fight until her name was clear. Jaromira could not understand it, why he would ruin his family just for her. So she decided to leave. She claimed to hate him, to hate how Humans and Souls were such irrational little pests that she simply could not fathom. It was stupid, and she was lying. As she left, she asked for only one thing of her former consort. "Please, tell them I was a great mother would you?" She set out for the Central 46 chambers that same day. She sundered their barrier, and watched as the Gotei 13 flooded the scene. Lap dogs to a corrupt order. The Captains she knew were retired or otherwise indisposed by this point, all except for Yamamoto. As a courtesy, when he demanded her surrender, she obliged. She was brought before the judges and wisemen of the Central 46 and sentenced for her many crimes. Countless infractions from breaking down the barriers of the noble houses; Recruiting criminals directly from the Nest of Maggots without consent; Ignoring directives in allowing the Gentei Reiin (限定霊印, Soul-Limiting Symbol) to be released; Instigating the supposed death of Seia Tulia Honoria and the collapse of her expedition to Hueco Mundo; Evading arrest when confronted. All of these were true to an extent, she made no attempt to deny it. She was sentenced to death. A week later, and they still could not kill her. Method after method was attempted, all to no avail until they were forced to take a different approach. A "reassessment of the facts" was what they called it. She was to be sentenced to Muken, for a period of 10,000 years. The rumour that went around the Soul Society was that she had been given a year for each Human that was affected by her actions in the Human World, but the truth was far more likely a result of every sneer and jab she gave her so-called executioners as they failed to extinguish her life time and again. She was strapped in with the greatest and most powerful seals of her time. Tied to a chair, so heavily restricted that the only thing anyone can see of her is her left eye. There she has remained for the last 500 years. Where she still sits even today. Inventions & Discoveries As one of the foremost experts in the field of scientific study throughout Soul Society, Jaromira has come to create many items both mundane and profound that have incredible use and implications for the spiritual community as a whole. Her inventions span a variety of fields, befitting her nature as a scientist who stretches her wisdom to many fields, rather than specialising in only one. *'Dentonbo' (伝蜻蛉, Communications Dragonfly): Jaromira is responsible for the creation of a specific breed of dragonflies that have evolved with the ability to communicate across dimensional spans. Small for the standard of their kind, the Dentonbo were cultivated over several generations so that they could one day fulfill the purpose of acting as communication devices for the Gotei 13. Raised in a highly regulated environment, with an expensive and strict diet composed of rare stock, their entire life cycle had been dictated by their "creator". The Dentonbo communicate with one another through the motions of their wings, which create vibrations on a specific frequency that can be caught by their antennae and relayed to the brain. When influenced by even minuscule amounts of Reiryoku, they can greatly increase the range of the vibrations they make, as well as how easily they can received feedback. In the hands of the Gotei, they are branded with seals that bind them to a specific Shinigami and they then latch onto that person's ear, designating them as a "host". The host bestows a small amount of Reiryoku upon them, and the Dentonbo then acts as if it were a . This allows Shinigami to remain in contact with one another regardless of dimension, and may be used to allow as many as fifty persons to communicate with each other at once. After Jaromira was apprehended for war crimes, their food stores dried up and as the Captain never divulged what their diet required, they eventually died out forcing the Gotei to find an alternative. Despite their apparent extinction, Jaromira claims that reviving them would be easy. *'Seisei-Zai' (浄精剤, Spiritual Purity Drug): An incredibly potent drug developed by Jaromira, meant to allow lower-level Shinigami to face off against opponents that would ordinarily be stronger than them. A rare concoction that relies on ingredients obtained from a variety of spiritual creatures, it facilitates a temporary expansion in a person's production of Reiryoku. Each person is limited by how much Reiryoku their soul produces each day, which is why Shinigami, who rely on Reiryoku for battle, require outside sources of sustenance unlike normal es who rely purely on their spiritual energy to keep them going through each day. The Seisei-Zai rapidly increases the rate in which the soul can produce this energy, and as such, its users find themselves with massively expanded energy reserves for a brief period. In its rawest form, the drug is able to elevate a Sixth Seat-ranked Shinigami to the level of a Captain in terms of raw power. Of course, at such a level, the soul is forced into a state of hyperactivity and inadvertently causes sickness in the user as a result. To be properly used, the drug is diluted several times over, thus lessening its potency and its resultant effects. Once diluted enough to prevent damage to the soul, it is capable of increasing a seated officer's power enough to stand on the level of a Lieutenant, and a Lieutenant to that of a Captain, at least on average. This effect lasts a total of three hours, where the undiluted version lasts an entire week. Still, despite the sickness, if its users are sufficiently hardy, they may be able to suffer through the drawbacks of the undiluted version of the drug, and in fact, Jaromira used this very thing to overcome the lengthy process of awakening Bankai, putting a few members of the 12th Division through life-or-death training whilst under the drug's effects to force them to achieve the Zanpakutō's final release. She had successfully cut the process down to five days with this method using hand picked candidates. The drug may come in pill, or liquid forms, and can even be administered as a suppository. *'Anti-Hollowfication Salve': During the War of Days, the Shinigami dispatched to the Human World became afflicted with a subtle poison that brought about the effects of Hollowfication to those that caught it. Traced back to a particular Hollow with the ability to inject his Reiryoku as a potent poison into his victims, it spread to others who had contact with the victim similar to a viral spread. After arriving on the scene of the epidemic, Jaromira was able to devise a vaccination solely through her own means, even outright denying assistance from the Hollow that caused the outbreak when he tried to bargain for his life. Applied to victims of the Hollowfication in the form of a salve, it is meant to soothe the outer layers of the body whilst entering the body's system to root out the source of the infection. The medication was comprised of the ground up bones of Quincy that died during the First Blood War, as well as the soul of a single Human, and a hundred hares that were used as substitutions over further Human sacrifice. Jaromira has stated that the salve only works on this specific form of Hollowfication, and would not save the lives of those foolish enough to try gaining Hollow powers willingly. *'Funkaimon' (紛界門, World Diverting Gate): The Shinigami preside over the Human World and Soul Society, that is all that falls within their jurisdiction, and all that they have natural access to. As Hueco Mundo, the home of Hollows, is disconnected from the Dangai, members of the Gotei 13 are unable to reach it, and thus their duties are primarily reactionary in nature. They can't attack the Hollows on their home turf, instead they are forced to wait until a Hollow attempts to hunt for souls before they can strike it down. Jaromira sought to overcome this hurdle by finding a means to create a gateway to Hueco Mundo from Soul Society. Her experiments first began producing results just before the start of the War of Days, and by the war's final stages, she had perfected the means to travel between these normally disconnected realms. Using two large heptagonal pillars as the borders of a gateway, Reiryoku is poured into them, as well as upon a catalyst, that rests between both pillars, something that has a connection to Hueco Mundo, such as a Hollow or artifacts that originated there. A gateway is opened using that connection, temporarily binding the summoning ground to Hueco Mundo for a time. If the gate is open for too long it risks pulling Hueco Mundo into the current dimension, which would destroy both realms of existence. Once the gateway is opened, an anchor is loosed into it which creates a massive bridge of Reishi that allowed passage for several hundred Shinigami at once, as expected of a tool created during wartime. The engineering behind the device was handled by Jojishi Kyōjin while Jaromira handled the more mystical aspects; as such it is a joint venture. *'Chosekki-yo' (長石木世, The Realm of the ): The alteration of dimensional space. It is something a great many people aspire to, especially those who pursue scientific study. The ability to achieve something so great is not new, in the spiritual realm many beings can alter their surroundings to some degree, and the act of opening gateways between dimensions is a common means of travel. Breaking and warping dimensions can be seen as child's play almost, as such feats become startlingly common among the higher echelons of any field that is promoted in the spiritual world. However, there is a field that is rarely touched, and that is the creation of a new dimensional space. There are many worlds that exist beyond just the Soul Society and the Human World, but they all tend to have been present long before their inhabitants came into being. It is exceedingly rare for someone currently living to have been around to witness the creation of a unique reality, and even rarer still to have had any part in it. Jaromira's greatest masterpiece then, is that sacrosanct act of creation. An entire dimension, a unique realm of space with its own reality, its own laws, functions and inner workings. It is an entire universe unto itself, and exists apart from the Soul Society, completely disconnected from the . It is widely known, but rarely accepted outright, that the "world" is made up of distinct barriers, or shields, that interlace through every part of the world to keep everything separated. These barriers take many forms, but are all linked by the fact that they are typically imperceptible, and very few creatures can actually interact with these barriers for that is the sacred territory of God. Jaromira herself stumbled upon the barriers that protect the Human World from the empty void of space that separates it from the Soul Society, and after learning how to repeat her good fortune, came up with the means to not only study these incredible machinations, but recreate them as well. Thus she created partitions that could cordon off a section of empty space, and used her Gendō to fill that void with an entire realm of existence. Such a thing would normally be transient, as Gendō relies on the beliefs of others to make its effects real, thus Jaromira created the "cornerstones", select individuals who were placed into the realm under certain conditions that made them accept it as real. These "cornerstones" were Satoru Kyōfu, Jojishi Kyōjin, and Hachū Bōkunō who were each forced to spend five days in the realm whilst training. Having lived in and accepted those surroundings as "real", the three of them unknowingly gave birth to Jaromira's own world. At the time when they entered it, the world was dead earth drowned in blackness, but a thousand years since then, the world is now populated by trees made of feldspar, and a Sun now rises in its ashen skies. Jaromira has stated that the world appears so dead because it is currently in a state of infancy. :*'Dokagi' (土鍵, Earth Key): As a complete existence unto itself, Jaromira's fledgling world has much in common with Hueco Mundo. They are both in states that resemble, but strike an odd picture to Humanity, they both both seem devoid of life in the typical sense, and they are both disconnected from the Dangai. As Hollows rip open the space between dimensions and forge their own paths to-and-from Hueco Mundo, so too does Chosekki-yo require its own method of entry. With her mastery of the sciences regarding dimensional constructs and the space between them, it was almost child's play to come up with a method to freely travel to her own world. What she conceived was a form of "key", small black cubes that she keeps on her person. Formed almost entirely of Reishi, the heart of these constructs is nonetheless alien, possessing a fragment of something born in Jaromira's world. By crushing the black cube in her hand, this sends a ripple back to that world, a result from the discarded material trying to find its way back to where it came from. Space is thus ripped away and a brief gateway is opened allowing one to traverse the empty void between dimensions. Much like using a Garganta, the user is required to form Reishi footholds in order to walk through the void, and those with a connection to Jaromira will find this easier than those without. Esoterology (謎実学 (エソテロロジ), Esoteroroji; Study of Rejected Knowledge) *'"Spiritual Units"' (霊単位, Reitan'i): When Jaromira arrived in Soul Society, the field of scientific study was still in its infancy, both in the Human World and there in the realm of spirits. One area she shaped for the spiritual community was geometry. Though Humans would eventually quantify units in terms such as centimetres and micrometres, Jaromira devised the Spiritual Unit, a unit of area that encompasses a mass the size of 540.98 km2 in Human terms. It came to be as she studied maps of the Rukongai and came to note that the 18th Northern Rukongai district encompasses an area that was a perfect square. Using the rudimentary systems of the time, she measured the space of that district and came to use it as a base for her own geometric unit. Her reasoning behind spiritual units was that events surrounding spirits typically fall upon a much greater scale than they do for Humans. The mere act of releasing one's Reiatsu, for example, would have repercussions on an area far beyond sight and touch. It would eventually come into common use by much of Soul Society's scientific communities, though she did have to bully her way into public acceptance for it along the way. Today, one of its major applications is dividing up the Human World into manageable areas that can be governed by the Shinigami. The Human World is thus separated into sections and appointed a number, such as which is District 3600, and falls squarely within the reach of one spiritual unit. *' ' (奇御霊, Wondrous Soul): The soul sits at the very core of every being, whether they live in the spiritual world or the physical one. It sits at the heart of every construct, from people to animals to even inanimate objects and concepts. Everything that exists in some form possesses a soul and it is the most necessary ingredient for anything to exist. The soul is where memories reside, where a name is solidified, and it is the source of each individual's Reiryoku, constantly generating a certain amount of spiritual energy like a form of metaphysical heart. In a sense, the soul could be considered the truest form of life, that from which all else stems. For Jaromira it has been the greatest hurdle for her, both as a scientist and a being that claims itself a position of Godhood. She has spent a great portion of her career on developing instruments specifically to study the soul, to break it down and quantify every speck, every atom, of its construction so that she could replicate it. It is not considered a sin that she attempted such a thing, she was hardly the first person in Soul Society to ever be intrigued by the inner workings of a soul, but an irremovable black mark has been left upon her for succeeding. Late in the War of Days, Jaromira had completed her replication of the soul, a perfect artificial duplicate of her very own core. It began as a blank slate, and the last phase of her testing required that she place the soul next to her own, implanting it within her body so that it could replicate the details of her real soul. During her fight with Roshan Bamshad, she sacrificed the artificial soul to power a Shūryō spell, though the magic tried to claim her real soul as well, damaging her body in the process. This has since led her to believe that her artificial copy wasn't, in fact, truly complete as the spell should have accepted it if that were the case. After being freed from Muken, continued study of the soul has become her number one priority. *'Zanpakutō Sublimation': The powers of a Zanpakutō come from within their wielder, a piece of their soul that is separated from themselves and contained within a blade. It reflects the nature of their wielder as it is a literal part of themselves simply cut from the whole. It stands to reason that if the soul can be severed, then there should also be means to re-merge those fragmented pieces. While studying that particular avenue, Jaromira discovered that not only could she return the splintered portion of her own soul to its original place, she could do so in just such a way as to keep the Zanpakutō's existence intact. This resulted in a form of sublimation. Where the physical container, the sword, has been destroyed and subsumed by Jaromira but the powers, and the Zanpakutō spirit remain. This allowed Jaromira to, essentially, cannibalise her own Zanpakutō, robbing it of all autonomy, will and power, leaving behind little more than a husk trapped in the deepest regions of her Inner World. Though Jaromira is technically "whole", her soul has not actually been completely recombined. Instead, the fragment that is her Zanpakutō has been re-attached to a near perfect extent, but is held in place by an outside force, thus preventing it from truly returning to its master. Jaromira now exists in a state that could be considered both that of a Shinigami and Zanpakutō. Her achievement of such a thing is one of many reasons she was placed within Muken, as perverting the very nature of a Shinigami is tantamount to blasphemy in the eyes of the Central 46. Despite this, one need only ask to have the procedure performed on them as Jaromira's adherence to rules is well known to be lax. *'Central Mainframe System ''Kotsuzui' : The barracks of the 12th Division plays host to a massive series of computer systems that provide them with an enormous number of instruments with which to observe the goings-on of the Human World, to provide monitoring security to it and Soul Society as well as giving them the means to better study and analyse a variety of objects. A series of supercomputers that are far ahead of anything that modern Human society has come to possess. These computers are a strange mix of biotechnology, comprised of parts mechanised and organic. Designed to continuously grow and evolve without the need for "upgrades" in the conventional sense, it is a self-perpetuating system that can be governed and guided by its users across prepared vectors. This allows the system to grow and encompass new areas that it didn't in the past, but only at the discretion of those who oversee it, thus preventing it from going out of control in some mad cycle of self-evolution. Jaromira named this system '''Kotsuzui' (骨髄, True Spirit) and it serves as the technological heart of the 12th Division. It serves many duties for the Gotei 13, and is filled to the brim with what passes for Jaromira's own logic, and using the system more often than not means coming to terms with that woman's strange viewpoint so that they might use the system freely. Given its ever-expandable capabilities, it would be truly frightening if this bio-technical marvel had anything akin to allegiance to a particular individual. Just so, Jaromira put failsafes in place to prevent anyone from ever tampering with the machine, even going so far as to proof it against the electromagnetic aura that Seia Tulia Honoria emitted. Though she claims that even she has no means of overriding her creation, few are loathe to believe Jaromira. Powers & Abilities Trivia *Izakata Hizakura used to affectionately refer to her as Jara (ヤラ, Yara). *Jaromira is a Slavic name meaning "peace", or, "world", whilst Dragan is a Slavic surname meaning "precious". *The colour associated with Jaromira is Brink, a shade of pink which, in Japanese colour culture, represents health, children, and, eroticism, it can also be considered a light or vibrant red which has its own representations along the lines of anger, excitement, passion, and, strength. *According to Otoya Kurogane's Fullbring, Dirty Accountant, Jaromira possesses a Price Level of 122,000. *Jaromira's Esoterology comes from User:Ash9876's own Esoterology article from the Fairy Tail Fanon wiki, though the translation used for its meaning has been changed. Its use was granted with permission. *In Japanese, Jaromira would refer to herself with the pronoun chin (朕), it is an archaic word that was used only by the , mostly prior to . *Jaromira's theme, as chosen by the author, is Nightmare Fiction from the OST. *Images on this article were drawn by Luminent-Soul on DeviantArt on commission from the author, and by User:ShonenChicoBoy upon request. Appearances *'Bleach Crossroads' *'Worlds Apart' Gallery JaromiraHS.jpg|by Luminent-Soul Jaro line.jpg|by SCB Jaro white back.png|by SCB References Category:Characters Category:Female Category:Shinigami Category:Captains Category:12th Division Category:Kidō Masters Category:Master Swordsmen Category:Shunpo Experts Category:Gotei 13